The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-17
LITERARY pTRACTEs.
Some Interesting Instances Of Them
En- ,.tailli.lcrln. RAcallad

Entertainingly Recalled.
NEW YORK, May LITTLE case OF Os-
canyan Effendi, formerly Turkish Consul
at this port, who is accused of selling as his
own a story written by Fitz-James O'Bricn
and published III Har12e,'S Maqariac in
1856, and who was arrested as a literary
thief at the instance of A. Irving Bachelor,
the publisher, recalls hundred instances of
INSCRIPTIONS deception on the part of per
sons who have posed as writers, but who
have shown more readiness. as automatic
copyists than as authors, more activity
with liz fingers than their brains Such
frauds have been common for centuries
One of the most learned men of Germany
many years ago wrote a book which he gave
to the world as a fragment of Seneca and
the impoSture was not discovered till a
| long time afterward. Whether ChatteIton,
1.-The matchleSS boy who persisted in his
pride" actually composed the poems which
he published as ROWley'S or whether he
really found them in an old chest are ques-
lions which may never be solved, but the
general verdict of literary critics was that
1T was case of ingenious inlposture. If so,
it was clearly folly, for the poems would
have given him a great reputation if they
had been published as his own. During the
Revolution alleged letters of Washington
We're forged for the purpose of affecting po-
litical opinions in England and about
thlrty-tive years ago a so-called new
work OF Sir Walter SCOTS appeared, which
proved to he an imposture. But newspapers
and magazines have always been peculiarly
exposed to this form of imposture, partly
owing to the unavoidable haste with which
they are prepared. Punch once declared
that for the purpose of excluding old jokes
from its columns it was under the painful
necessity of keeping memory boy" Like
all boys, be seems occasionally to go to sleep
at his post. Jokes which must have seene2
painfully antique to Rameses II. long before
he became mummy in the sweet-scented
cerements of an Egyptian tomb occasion
ally shine with faint glimmer from past
ages in that weekly exhibition of humorous
bric-a- brac, and editors on this side of the
! water also unwittingly assist not
unfrequently at the exhuming of dead
and forgotten stories, the chief grave
digger, Of course, representing him
self as the author. Disraeli, it is well
known, stole large portion of one of his
finest orations from GuiZot, the French
statesman and historian. The Rev. DIR.
Goodwin, regent of the University of this
State about twenty years ago. made
| speech on the influence of modern liberty,
| half Of which was taken from a pamphlet
written by the infdel Tom Paine This
was whipping his satanic majesty around
stump at very high rate of speed. The
y
he would probably feel bound to denounce
| In the pulpit! Paine, whatever may be said
of his opinions, was never considered q
thief or hypocrite One of the most I'M
blushing of literary impostures, however,
was the transfer of a story from GrGhdnI's
Magazine TO a periodical called the Inter
national Magazine, published here during
the civil war and edited by Robert J. Walker,
formerly Secretary of the Treasury. In 1858
GTdh0nt'S Magazine published an interest
ing story entitled "Doras Cold,n It was
pirated, word for word, in the International
Magazine seven years later. What made
this imposture peculiarly brazen was the
fact that Grdhdn'S Magazine was then one
OF the most widely circulated periodicals in
this country, and that the International
also had large circulation among the same
class of readers.
A gentleman well known in New York
was one day in the office of a newspaper
when young man entered and offered
story for publication. 1t related to factory
life in the East and was singularly well
written. The editor inquired: "Who wrote
this"
The young man answered: ga friend of
mine.n
SIS he an old manY"
''No; IS or 26."
''The reason asked" said the editor, ''is
that he has an allusion to a color called
NaVarino blue This could not have been
written long after the battle of that name,
which was fought in 1926 or 1927, when the
color became familiar to the public"
1t was keen criticism which piqued the
! curiosity of the gentleman to whom I have
referred He took the manuscript, read
few pages and found that it was an unblush-
ing theft of a story from the LotUeU Offer
ing, a periodical published and conducted
by the factory hands there in 1916. The
rbn hl1y thn
literary thief, promptly retired, crestfallen.
Most of the newspapers and magazines of
long standing have been victimized. Joseph
Towards bogus draft proclamation which
caused the suspension for several days of
the World and the Journal of Commerce
during the civil war, and which led to his
imprisonment in Fort Lafayette but which
did not prevent his securing shortly after
his release a position from the government
which, in an ecstasy of outraged virtue, he
threatened to sue, is part OF journalistic
history. One OF the most recent of literary
frauds was practiced on the Century maya
zine, which published a description of the
voyage and exploits of the Confederate
Shenandoah written in the first person
by an individual who thus gave the i'm
preston that he had been an eyewitness of
the scenes described, whereas it has tran
spired that he was not ON the vessel at all.
Collins "Odo to the Passions was once
offered to the editor of an interior Dewspa-
per by a country pumpkin anxious to cut a
figure in stolen literary clothes. He not
only stole Collins Ode but he mutilated
some of his exquisite lines, as with the pick
ak of quarry laborer defacing the Faun of
Praxitiles. He capped the climax, however,
with something PROFESSIONALLY fresh, not
TO say unique. He rose to the height of
towering passion because his piece" was
rejected. OSCAR WILLoUGHBY RIGGS.
Mind Your Eyes.
From It'd Bits.